Marconi

Challenge:

In spite of the rise of personal mobile communications, public access payphones remain an absolute requirement in public places and there is a competitive market for their supply.

In order to advance their market position Marconi-GPT asked KD to help develop a new generation of public access payphones and pay communication terminals to provide a far more flexible and appealing user experience fit for the 21st century.

With the NET200 Payphone, the main challenge was to achieve genuine user appeal, a unique identity and ease of use reconciled with the need for uncompromised resistance to attack, easy retro-fitting within existing booths and a cost neutral manufacturing solution. For the interactive web terminal, the challenge was to create a modern, flexible kiosk configuration, suitable for adaptation to a range of b2b customer needs.

Solution:

KD designed a casework system based on pressure die cast Aluminium alloy, but with tooling inserts to allow for future variations in display size and controls. The internal electronics and electro-mechanics were configured as a pivoting sub-assembly attached to the hinge-opening front case half, so allowing easy access for maintenance within the confined space of existing booths. Aesthetically, our proposal was an asymmetric ‘organic-geometry’ to achieve a distinctive visual signature and ownable design language, combined with high quality polyester powder coating in a new range of metallic and solid colours.

Sharing the same design language as the payphone the NET1000 kiosk delivers a modular design solution which can be adapted to a variety of applications including pay telephony, web access, information display, gaming and retail transactions. The modular assembly of sheet steel and RIM moulded plastics also allows for free standing installation via the custom designed plinth, or wall mounting.